Ralph Lauren Is Reportedly Dressing Melania Trump for the Inauguration

NEW YORK, NY - NOVEMBER 09: Republican president-elect Donald Trump acknowledges the crowd along with his wife Melania Trump during his election night event at the New York Hilton Midtown in the early morning hours of November 9, 2016 in New York City. Donald Trump defeated Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton to become the 45th president of the United States. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)Getty Images

Melania Trump has a huge closet to fill. As she prepares to officially step into her role as First Lady, she does so amid major controversy and with an insanely high bar set by her predecessor. Outside the political arena, Melania Trump has been considered as a stylish lady. But inside, the former model has been the subject of protest by some designers who are in opposition to her husband’s controversial politics. With a parade of highly visible inaugural events approaching, that leaves FLOTUS’s transition team with a major wardrobe dilemma.

According to a report by WWD, it looks like it might be all-American designer Ralph Lauren to the rescue, who, despite being a vocal supporter of and frequent designer for Hillary Clinton, is reportedly working on one of Trump’s formal ensembles for inauguration week. (We've reached out to Ralph Lauren's representatives for a comment and will update the post accordingly.)

While Trump favored mostly European designers on the campaign trail, she stepped up her bipartisan style game during the last leg of campaigning and donned an ethereal and symbolic white, off-the-shoulder jumpsuit by Ralph Lauren on election night, which was reportedly purchased off the rack. A bespoke Lauren creation for the future First Lady—and one for Trump’s high profile inaugural debut as First Lady—might signal a warming relationship between the controversial figure and American designers.

In the midst of one of the most controversial presidential transitions in history, the outfit choices of the First Lady still have the power to be of consequence. For that, we can thank Michelle Obama. Even more so than icons like Jacqueline Kennedy and Nancy Reagan, Obama has used her tenure as FLOTUS to make the sartorial conversation just as important as the policy conversation. Not only did she help catapult upstart American designers like Thakoon and Christian Siriano into the highest echelons of style, she used her wardrobe as a platform for expressing higher-level ideals like relatability and globalization—and girlfriend looked damn good doing it.

Dressing FLOTUS means major publicity for a designer (37.8 million eyed Michelle Obama’s Isabel Toledo suit as her husband took oath in 2009) and has historically been seen as a huge honor. It’s surprising then that so many designers, including industry titans like Marc Jacobs and Tom Ford and Obama-era favorites like Sophie Theallet, have given Trump the cold shoulder. Still, with designers like Diane von Furstenberg, Tommy Hilfiger, Badgley Mischka, and now potentially Ralph Lauren, in FLOTUS’s corner, we can hopefully look forward to four more years of killer style.